I enjoy the comedy.
Yes, I don’t think there will be all that much logical political calculation going into his decisions either - which just makes Mueller’s firing all that more probable. I’m just pointing out that even to a reasonable cold cynical calculator, the move makes sense. It’s the last good opportunity to declare the whole thing a nonsense conspiracy concocted by the deep state.
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He has described himself as an “evangelical Catholic”, although apparently – as you and Wikipedia observe – he’s now shortened that to just “evangelical” and describes himself as “Christian”, without being more specific.
I was knowingly playing a little loose with the facts, but at the same time I’d bet there are a few Jack Chick fans in Bakker’s constituency who would be ready to believe that Pence’s Catholic upbringing makes him permanently BFFs with Satan. If he were a Democrat, I’m sure his Catholic roots would count against him with those folks.
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Evangelicals are not really Christians–they stand against everything that Christ taught.
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Yeah, it would be better to say “convicted criminal”.
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It’s people like this who give blowhard arseholes a bad name.
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Sorry, I can’t help but imagine him doing that literally: “I hereby pardon all Americans, for all crimes they’ve committed.” Kind of a Jubilee year type thing, but for crimes instead of debts. Yes, I know that’s not how pardons work.
Also, as @Akimbo_NOT points out, that wouldn’t protect him from impeachment.
That said - the possibility of riots should not play much into anyone’s decision on whether or not to impeach Trump. Little old ladies riot? Arrest them. You wanted a law and order president? Then the laws are for everyone.
And if it turns out a substantial fraction of the American population riots? So be it. Maybe, maybe that would get our Congress members to pull their heads out of their respective asses and fix the things that are actually wrong with this country. And also put the riots down, like we have in the past.
I don’t want those things to happen, of course. But they’re not much worse IMO than (as one example) the current estimates out there of a 10-20% chance of nuclear war with North Korea (and 20-40% chance of conventional war). At least deaths and damage from riots would happen in the country that caused the problem in the first place.
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That’s exactly it – he’ll sell survival buckets of crap now if people think there will be riots. (Presumably if the apocalyptic riots actually break out, the supply chain will have broken down too much to ensure timely delivery.)
Previously:
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I have read the Vox article but I find the Congress inquiry threat rather toothless. So Congress subpoenas the pardoned suspects. Let’s say they testify relatively truthfully and confirm that the campaign was actively collaborating with Russians to get dirt on Clinton. Then… nothing happens.
I’m quite convinced that there isn’t much more to reveal, above what is already more or less known. Nothing has prompted GOP to impeach Trump yet and I seriously doubt this would do it. Right-wing pundits will declare it admirable and cunning campaign tactics and point out that everyone involved was legally pardoned in accordance with the powers accorded to the presidential office, so there is nothing more to talk about.
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Yeah, but Republicans are not going to impeach him. Why would they?
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Traitors with their hands in the candy jar won’t pull out until the candy is gone.
Trump will be impeached, if God wills it. 
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They would not. But apparently Jim Bakker thought it enough of a risk to both making this statement, so I was granting the premise for the sake of the discussion.
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so the snowflakes are going to throw a tantrum if they don’t get their way? that’s how i’m reading this.
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My prediction:
- Mueller turns up more than enough dirt to convict many of Trump’s inner circle of sundry serious offenses, not all related to Russian election meddling.
- Trump declares he has no idea who any of these people are, never met them, etc.
- Mueller fails to prove unambiguously that Trump was actively involved in soliciting the Russians to share or leak information harmful to Clinton; the evidence that he does present appears damningly conclusive to liberals, laughably inconsequential to conservatives.
- A Democrat introduces impeachment proceedings, which are unanimously supported by fellow members of their party
- Emboldened by the fact that – however bad it looks – Mueller can’t prove anything with absolute certainty, the Republicans unanimously team up to block impeachment.
- Nothing happens, and 2018 is even more of a shitshow than 2017.
My reason for believing this is because of something Trump said – twice – to the effect that there’ll be trouble if Mueller starts looking into his previous real estate deals. This is rather like saying “There is absolutely no dead body on my property and I quite definitely did not bury it in the flowerbed.”
Unless this is some masterpiece of misdirection, Trump seems to be revealing what he’s really afraid of, and it (probably) isn’t anything to do with Russia. The implication is that he’s confident that there’s nothing Mueller can do to make charges of collusion stick; he was savvy enough to distance himself from the maneuverings of his court, at least for the purposes of plausible deniability. Assuming he’s correct, then Mueller isn’t going to turn up any unambiguous smoking gun, and the rest of my predictions follow.
Of course his assessment may be wrong, and one or more of his minions may turn on him in exchange for a lighter jail sentence.
Mueller is working to flip Trump’s henchmen (the initial charges we’re seeing are all aimed at that goal). Trump, on the other hand, is confident that he’s safe, so long as Mueller doesn’t look at his actual past criminality in other areas (and if Mueller goes there, Trump will fire him, cost what it may).
I predict no neat and tidy resolution, just a long, painful drawn out process that will continue until the end of Trump’s term (possibly his second term, given that the Democrats seem incapable of mounting a credible political challenge and the Republicans have four more years to engineer an eternal lock-in through voter suppression and gerrymandering). Or until he drags us into a nuclear war with France or something.
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I can see why he like Trump:
"The PTL Club’s fundraising activities between 1984–1987 were scrutinised by The Charlotte Observer newspaper, eventually leading to criminal charges against Jim Bakker. From 1984 to 1987, Bakker and his PTL associates sold $1,000 “lifetime memberships,” which entitled buyers to a three-night stay annually at a luxury hotel at Heritage USA. According to the prosecution at Bakker’s later fraud trial, tens of thousands of memberships had been sold, but only one 500-room hotel was ever completed. Bakker sold more “exclusive partnerships” than could be accommodated, while raising more than twice the money needed to build the actual hotel. A good deal of the money went into Heritage USA’s operating expenses, and Bakker kept $3.4 million in bonuses for himself.
A $279,000 pay-off for the silence of Jessica Hahn who claims Bakker and Fletcher drugged and raped her was paid with PTL’s funds to Hahn through Bakker associate Roe Messner.[10][11] Bakker, who made all of the financial decisions for the PTL organization, allegedly kept two sets of books to conceal the accounting irregularities."
-wikipedia
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It’ll take a year or so - but - Jared goes down - Trump pardons him - impeached for obstruction.
And the NY AG files a case anyway.
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I think your point on lack of clear evidence to bust Trump personally is pretty sound. It’s 99% certain someone will have to squeal to implicate him directly and that may not come to pass. But - if we have been able to conclude the bit about old shady business deals and tax evasion, so has Mueller. So I’m pretty sure that’s his plan B, in case the big prize eludes him.
Dude is selling prepper and end of the world stuff. No shit he is flaming the flames.
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